


Traditional

by Amanita_Cynth



Series: AroWriMo 2020 [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Aromantic, Character Study, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Polyamory Negotiations, Relationship Negotiation, arowrimo, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanita_Cynth/pseuds/Amanita_Cynth
Summary: Eliot doesn’t so much fall in love as come to the realisation that he’s going to die for them.Or: How Eliot learns some new things about himself and Parker and Hardison learn just how to stay with him.
Relationships: Alec Hardison & Parker & Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison/Parker
Series: AroWriMo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624459
Comments: 15
Kudos: 70





	Traditional

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I should get a headstart on these prompts  
> Also me: Let's do the least work on the first and shortest story
> 
> I'll probably come back at some point and add to this but for now this works for my first post on AO3- oh god. Anyway since I watched Leverage I've loved the idea of the OT3 but I've also been interested in some of them being aspec in some way, so this gave the incentive to explore it a bit.
> 
> Update: y'all ever catch grammar mistakes in something you posted months before

It didn’t really start with the shitty conversation in the brewpub- Eliot knew himself better than that, and he knew Hardison and Parker better than that too- but it was the start of _something_. The start of understanding, maybe.

Either way, it was entirely Hardison’s fault, as most things were. 

“You just don’t like my creations cos you’re boring. You’re traditional. You ain’t got a taste for _adventure_ and _horizons_.” He was whining after another failed taste-test of a microbrew.

“Traditional?” Eliot repeated, the slightest hint of a growl in his voice. 

“Yeah.” Hardison nodded. “I mean. You are, man.” 

“I used to kill people for money.” He stated flatly. “Then I helped a bunch of conmen trick assholes into screwing themselves over. Playing Robin Hood isn’t exactly a nine to five kinda life.”

“Well-” 

“What about me screams _traditional_?” 

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry.” Hardison held his hands up, but like always had no idea when to stop running his mouth. “I just figured, ya know man. You pick up women all the time and you had that thing with Aimee-” 

“I pick up men, too.” Eliot said, just to make him shut up about Aimee, and then he sort of regretted it when he saw the shocked look on Hardison’s face. He hadn’t actually thought the man would have a problem with it or he wouldn’t have said it, no matter how desperately he wanted to head off conversation about previous...entanglements, but he might have misread that and the thought made his shoulders tense up. 

“Eliot.” He said, sounding sort of wrecked. “You just told me something deeply personal about you.” 

“I- what?” He blinked. 

“Come ‘ere man.” Hardison grinned, trying to pull him into a hug. 

“What are you- no, stop!” He protested, but he didn’t actually fight it. He might hurt the other man, after all (and it was an obvious lie, but nobody would have to know). 

* * *

Eliot doesn’t so much fall in love as come to the realisation that he’s going to die for them. Not on a mission or waking up after a nightmare or something equally stressful, just on a rainy Thursday between jobs when they were in Boston. 

Hardison was whining about something appropriately nerdy and Parker was making weird comments like usual and Eliot was trying to come up with a plan for dinner when Hardison said something so inaccurate, so _horrible_ about crème brûlée that he had to get involved. So they were bickering and then Parker chimed in with one of her typical comments that had both of them snorting, and he thought _ah, these two are idiots and they’re wonderful and I’m going to die for them one day_. 

He didn’t say anything about it. What would be the point? It would just upset Hardison, and maybe Parker, and it might make things too weird. They were obviously heading to a situation where they were together and making such a sentimental announcement might mess that up, might make them think he loved one of them and he couldn’t do that to them, that false hope, because he wasn’t able to settle down, to date, to love in the way they would want. 

He could care, could care so much that it _burned_ , but the word ‘love’ always put a sour taste in his mouth and it hadn’t changed, not even for them. And he wasn’t going to make the mistake of trying to explain that to anyone ever again. 

So he didn’t say anything about it. 

There was no point. 

* * *

Years later, after everything went to shit a little, Hardison called him an idiot. 

“You’re an idiot.” He said. “You couldn’t have just said that you were aromantic?” 

“That I’m what.” Eliot replied flatly. 

“That you’re- you don’t experience romantic attraction, right?” Hardison was looking less sure. 

“No, guess not.” 

“Then you’re probably aromantic. Guess you couldn’t have told us that if you didn’t know. Come on, let’s- you wanna look this up with me? D’ya wanna do some internet sleuthing with me? C’mon.” 

“Why do you sound like you’re trying to cajole a stubborn dog?” He scoffed. 

“Uh, maybe cos I often feel like that round you?” 

“Sure, alright.” He rolled his eyes. “Let’s do it already if you’re gonna continue like this.” 

And they spent the next few hours scouring the internet on one of Nate’s old laptops, shoulders pressed together and head spinning with all the new information that changed so much and yet so little. 

* * *

It would have been some sort of bitter, delicious destiny if Hardison had been the one to send everything to shit, but it was actually Parker, as blunt as she always was around them. 

“We’re in love with you.” She told him out of the blue, when it was just the two of them in the kitchen and he was sauteing scallops. “And I think you’re in love with us.” 

He dropped the pan. 

“Parker, what the fuck?” 

“We’ve been talking about it-” 

“You’ve been _what_?” The scallops were burning and he didn’t even care. “And you just decided how I feel and how I am, did you?” 

“Oh no, you’re upset.” She blinked. “Hardison was right, I should wait for him to talk about it.” 

“You didn’t say it wrong, Parker, you’re both just plain wrong.” He growled. “Oh, shit-!” He finally noticed the scallops and moved them off the heat before they could fully set on fire. He looked from them to Parker and sighed heavily before dumping them in the trash and dropping the pan on a cooling rack. “Yeah, you know what? I’m not hanging around to deal with this. Order takeout.” 

“Wait.” She tried. 

“No, I’m out. Have fun talking about me.” 

“I’m sorry!” 

He paused in the doorway. 

“Yeah.” He said quietly, and left.

* * *

And it didn’t end- because nothing about them is going to _end_ \- when Parker and Hardison cornered him after a briefing, but it was a little like it, a little like release, when Parker immediately started talking. 

“You couldn’t have used that word, because you didn’t know it, but you could have still _explained_ it, Eliot.” She said, a little impatient in that familiar way when she thought one of them was being an idiot. He was getting a little tired of being treated like an idiot. “We don’t want anything that you don’t want. You don’t need to love us like we love you. We’re not going to make you leave over something stupid like _that_.”

“Good.” He managed. “Because I don’t want to leave. Til my dying day, remember?” 

She smiled at him when he said that, like he’d given her a very hard vault to break into or offered to go skydiving with her. And Hardison, previously silent, had let out a long, relieved sigh and given him a huge grin. 

“We change together.” She agreed, and then, “Does this mean we can have sex now?” 

“ _Parker_.” Both of them choked, but she was laughing and then they were all laughing and yeah. He wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Please don’t ever leave us.” Hardison managed through the gasps. 

“Already said I was staying.”

“Good.” He beamed. “That’s really, really good. You should come to movie nights sometime.”

“Yeah.” Eliot smiled back. “Sounds good.”

* * *

(Years later, when the two of them got married, he was the best man for both of them because Amy was also the maid of honour for both of them and they were so dismissive of what was traditional. 

They’d had to plan and execute a very elaborate heist for the materials for the wedding rings- which Parker had insisted on calling a pre-honeymoon- and they’d asked, not as carefully with years of understanding between them, if Eliot wanted one too. He’d agreed, one on his left hand though, and when they’d picked up the rings there were two in gold with platinum running through it in a thick band and one in platinum with a thin band of gold, because Hardison knew as well as Eliot what a white band on the left middle finger meant because they’d read that together, crowded close over a computer screen. 

And he didn’t cry and he didn’t say he loved them but it didn’t matter anyway, because they were grinning and unsurprised that he didn’t put it on until after the wedding ceremony.)


End file.
